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The Moderator Effects of Public Service Motivation and
the Contact with the Public on the Relation between
Organizational Cutbacks and Resistance to Change
Master Thesis, January 2017
Leiden University
Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs
Institute of Public Administration
Supervisor: Dr. J. van der Voet
Second reader: Dr. Petra van den Bekerom
Michele Mauro Pennella
s1800256
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Content
1. Introduction
3
1.1 Research Question
4
1.2 Justification
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1.3 Structure
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2. Theoretical review
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2.1 Organizational cutbacks
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2.2 Resistance to organizational cutbacks
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2.2.1 Types of reactions to organizational change
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2.3 Moderators of resistance to change
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2.3.1 Public Service Motivation
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2.3.2 Contact with the public
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3. Method
24
3.1 Case
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3.2 Data
24
3.3 Measures
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3.4 Strengths and Limitations
30
4. Results
32
4.1 Descriptive Statistics
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4.2 Correlation Analyses
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4.3 Regression Analyses
42
5. Conclusion
48
5.1 Discussion
48
5.2 Theoretical implications
48
5.3 Practical implications
50
5.4 Limitations
51
5.5 Future research
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6. Bibliography
54
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1
Introduction
Scarcity is a natural condition governments cannot avoid. During the last nine years, the European Union countries have faced an average of three years of recession (World Bank, 2016). As the context changes to conditions of scarceness, organizations need to adapt themselves to the available resources and they introduce austerity-driven changes.
Employees’ reaction to organizational change is largely dependent on the content and the outcomes of the changes introduced. Therefore, there are two important reasons to expect resistance as the reaction to cutbacks. The first ones are the effects on the working conditions, which can trigger a perception of a psychological contract breach, produced by the non-fulfilment of their administrative expectations. The second ones, unique to public organizations, are the effects of those cutbacks in the provision of public services, which are a central element on the motivation and identification of public servants.
As a large part of public administration literature has research on (Ritz, Brewer, & Neumann, 2016), public employees seem to have a different set of motivations than private employees. Since many of them join the public sector to improve the wellbeing of their communities or society, cutbacks may affect the possibility to fulfil their working expectations, and their perception on the significance of their jobs.
Nevertheless, the connection between organizational cutbacks and resistance to change may be more complex than what it seems. Most of the antecedents of the attitudes toward change have not been specifically studied for cutback-related changes. In those cases, the reactions may be the different than for other type of changes.
Since organizations will always have to face periods of declining resources, the study of organizational cutbacks, and the subsequent reaction of public employees, is fundamental for the public administration field and can contribute to the efforts to unravel the intricate relationship between the political sphere (where the cutback decisions are taken) and the public servants, who are direct witnesses of their effects.
4 1.1 Research Question
Public employees and public jobs are not alike. Employees and jobs have different characteristics that affect their perceptions on their jobs and its relevance, and on the purpose and objectives of their organization.
By the same reason, when organizational cutbacks are introduced, those differences also shape their perceptions on when the working conditions are affected and when the organization is no longer fulfilling its obligations towards them and the community. Correspondingly, their reactions are neither alike.
While some public workers can defend cutback related changes as necessaries or positives for the organization, those who disagree with the budget reductions are constrained to choose between two main alternatives: accept them or resist them (understanding resistance as a large set of techniques to try to prevent, discourage or oppose change).
The current knowledge on the link between organizational cutbacks and resistance to change is still insufficient, as well as the effect of employees’ and jobs’ characteristics.
This research looks those dimensions and their moderator effects on the relation between organizational cutbacks and resistance to change. As one the most relevant and unique characteristics of public employees is their set of motivations, the first studied moderator variable is public service motivation. The second element analysed are the possibilities of certain jobs to provide the employees with some contact with the beneficiaries of their actions.
Therefore, the research question of the following study is:
How does public service motivation and the opportunities to have contact with the public moderate the relation between organizational cutbacks and resistance to change?
5 1.2 Justification
Practical relevance
Economy cycles are characterized by the alternation between stages of growth (recovery and expansion) and stages of decline (crisis and recession). Organizational changes can occur in every of those periods, but the challenges faced are different. The main one is that the climate of “rapid organizational change under conditions of declining resources” is marked by feelings of insecurity, emergency, fear and suspicion (Russell, 1989, p. 680).
A fundamental issue for managers then is to understand the effects of changes in their organizations under declining resources conditions. In public organizations, that challenge is bigger. As stressed by Boyne (2002), ‘publicness’ has four main effects in organizations. First, public organizations face a different organizational environment characterized by its complexity (higher number of stakeholders), permeability (easily influenced by external events), instability (frequent change in policy and leaders) and absence of competitive pressures. Second, public organizations have a larger set of goals, as accountability and equity. Third, organizational structures have higher levels of bureaucracy, red tape and lower levels of managerial autonomy. Finally, there is a different ethos which is more focus on serving the public and higher organizational commitment, rather than an individual sear of materialistic and personal rewards. Therefore, the conclusions reached by studies on the private sector, may not hold on the public sector. Managers of public organizations would benefit from a larger literature dedicated to cutbacks on public organizations.
The reduction of the resources necessaries to execute policies has effects on the quality of the services provided (Burns, Hyde, & Killeett, 2016). These effects create a double blow for the attitudes of public employees since, besides the effect on the working conditions, the provision of good public services is central to the identification and motivation the public servants (Perry & Wise, 1990). Consequently, managers expect to face resistance when they introduce budget reductions. But the process remains a black box as they still do not have the enough information about the antecedents of resistance.
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Understanding the reasons why some public servants resist budget reductions more than others, is of vital importance for leaders (Yang & Kassekert, 2009). For example, anticipating the existence of clusters of resistance may provide a roadmap for the introduction of mechanisms to decide, implement and communicate change. Workers who are more likely to express their resistance to organizational cutbacks may also be those more willing to participate in the elaboration of alternative plans to avoid them.
Theoretical relevance
Per Raudla, Savi and Randma-Liiv (2013), public administration research on cutback-related changes is mainly composed by empirical studies written about United States and United Kingdom. Only a limited number of studies have been carried in the Netherlands (e.g. Kickert, 2012; Overmans & Noordegraaf, 2014; Paraskevas, Demerouti, & Xanthopoulou, 2016; van der Voet & Vermeeren, 2017). A first contribution of the following research is to increase the understanding of budget reductions in the Dutch public service. Even if the results can also bring information about general issues related to public servants, the context should not be underestimated.
Most of the cutback literature has been centred on which are the different cutback strategies, which policy areas have been more largely affected and how the decision process is. Only a small portion of the authors has tried to understand the influence of cutbacks on the workers. In those cases, though, the energy was put on the study of the effects on organizational commitment (e.g Lodge & Hood, 2012), distrust (e.g. Holzer, 1986), employee well-being (e.g. Kiefer, Hartley, Conway, & Briner, 2014) and job security (e.g. Kraimer, Wayne, Liden, & Sparrowe, 2005). This research aims to explore the link between cutbacks and the existence of specific actions of resistance to change by part of the employees.
Albeit the extension of resistance to change literature, its weakness for public administration researchers is that has been mainly focus on private organizations and at organizational level (Oreg, Vakola, & Armenakis, 2011). The consequence is that some of the traits of public organizations and public employees have been scarcely linked to resistance, particularly those related to the public values and motivations. That oversight its particularly relevant, since public servants may also find mechanisms to resist cutbacks to public policies
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even if they do not affect their job directly, but only moved by a sense of moral responsibility (Dodson, 2009).
The interest in the public employees’ motivation has increased during the last years, and it is currently considered one of the major topics of the public organizations field (Vandenabeele & Skelcher, 2015). Despite the increasing attention, the relation between public servants’ motivation and other phenomena is still disputed. The major critic to the literature is that it has not being able to provide managers with information that could impact how they direct public organizations (Lavigna, 2015). By exploring the connection between public service motivation and the resistance to organizational cutbacks, this study contributes to keep expanding and strengthening the knowledge we have on a major research topic for the field.
Finally, the effects of having jobs that provide opportunities to have a frequent and meaningful contact with the beneficiaries have also increasingly gain attention as they constitute one of the characteristics of pro-social jobs and as enabler of task significance (Grant, Fried, & Juillerat, 2011). Nevertheless, the question on what role does it play during organizational change remains unanswered.
1.3 Structure
The research is structured in the following way.
In the second chapter the main theoretical concepts are discussed: organizational cutbacks, resistance to change, public service motivation, self-sacrifice and contact with the public. Particular interest has been given to the application of those theories in the public sphere, since the largest part of the literature has focused on private organizations.
In the third chapter the research design is described. The study uses quantitative methods on data collected through a national survey. The conceptualization and the operationalization of the variables are exposed, as well as the instrument and information related to the data collection.
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In the fourth chapter the results and the analysis are presented. The analysis is composed by three sections, reporting descriptive statistics, correlations and regression analyses, respectively.
The fifth chapter provides the conclusions of the research. In that section are discussed the findings, and are presented the suggestions for further research in the field and the practical implications, as well as the limitations of the study.
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2
Theoretical Review
The following research focuses on the moderator effects of public service motivation and the contact with the public in the resistance to organizational cutbacks.
In this chapter, first it is discussed the organizational cutback literature. Its position inside organizational change theory is presented, focusing on the resource dependency theory and its characteristics as episodic change.
Then, the link between organizational cutbacks and resistance to change are described. As organizational cutbacks may violate psychological contracts, employees may reciprocate. Then, the different possible reactions to organizational change will be outlined using the literature on attitudes toward change.
Finally, the focus will change to two types of pre-change antecedents -public service motivation and contact with the public- as expected moderators on the relationship between organizational cutbacks and resistance to change.
2.1 Organizational Cutbacks
Organizational change has been defined as “a difference in form, quality, or state over time in an organizational entity” (Poole & Van De Ven, 2004, p. xi). It is therefore a modification in a defining element of the organization. Regardless the extent of the change, the organization acquires or loses some of its inherent characteristics. These changes affect, among other things, organizational processes and the allocation of resources (Huber, Sutcliffe, Miller, & Glick, 1993).
Many theories have been elaborated over the causes for organizational change (Van de Ven & Poole, 2009). The most suitable framework to understand organizational cutbacks is the rational adaptation theory. According to this theory, the cause of organization change has to be found as an organizational response to changes that are produced in the context or
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environment (Hannan & Freeman, 1984), which is characterized by constant change (Emery & Trist, 1965). Resource dependency theory - located within the rational adaptation framework - stresses the reliance of organizations on resources available in their environments to survive (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978). The environment relates with the organizations either by the provision or the denying of resources, which have consequences on the organizational behaviour (Parastuty, Schwarz, Breitenecke, & Harms, 2015).
The constant change in the environment is not necessarily matched by an immediate adaptation of the organization. In fact, frequently, organizational change is depicted as an anomalous status of an organization (Tolbert, 1985) that happens because of the failure of the organization to adapt continuously (Dunphy, 1996). Under that perspective, the natural condition of organizations is inertia (Tushman & O'Reilly, 1996), where change is an episodic disruption.
Weick and Quinn (1999) characterized episodic change as infrequent, discontinuous and intentional. Furthermore, episodic change is usually preceded by a formal deliberation, and is originated in the higher levels rather than at the employees’ level (Mintzberg & Westley, 1992). Hence, in the distinction between planned and emergent change (Kuipers et al., 2014), episodic change fits within the first type. Finally, since episodic change is perceived as an interruption to the ongoing setting, as a breakdown between two periods of relative stability, and as a failure of the organization to adapt, it tends to be dramatic (Weick & Quinn, 1999).
Organizations’ environment alternate between periods of resource abundance and periods of scarceness. Therefore, scarcity is an unavoidable challenge that organizations must face (Levine, 1978). While in times of abundance organizations may not incur in organizational changes, it is unavoidable when the environments change into lower levels of resources. In fact, as observed by Pandey (2010), organizational changes are highly common in times of budgetary constraint. In those situations, one of the possible strategies is to adjust the scale of operations (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978).
A definition of cutbacks has been provided by Levine (1979, p. 180). Cutbacks are changes “toward lower levels of resource consumption and organizational activity”. A more detailed definition was presented by van der Voet and Vermeeren (2017, p. 232), as they defined cutbacks as “organizational reforms aimed at merging or abolishing departments and reducing or outsourcing the tasks of an organization with the aim of cutting back on expense”.
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Because of the aforesaid, organizational cutbacks could be characterized as episodic changes that happen when the desynchronization between the organizational processes and the actual available resources reaches a tipping point. Therefore, cutbacks are intentional, formal, planned, and characterized by a top-down decision process.
When public organizations react to budgetary restrictions by introducing cutbacks, they choose between different strategies. Raudla et al. (2013) classified the instruments in three different groups. First, there are instruments for cutting operational measures. The second group is composed by the instruments aimed to reduce the program. The last one are instruments aimed to reduce capital expenditures.
Cuttings on operational measures are aimed to reduce either personnel or non-personnel costs. The most commonly used instruments to reduce personnel costs are: wage freeze, slowdown of promotions, reduced of the working hours, salary cuts, freeze on recruitment, layoffs and changes or mergers of teams (Downs & Rocke, 1984; Nelson & Balu, 2014; Wanna, Jensen, & de Vries, 2010). On the other side, to reduce non-personnel costs the most common instruments are cuts on redundancies and the reduction of spending in supplies, in equipment and in communication (Lewis & Logalbo, 1980; Wolman & Peterson, 1981). All these measures affect the operational level of the organization. In some cases, and under certain circumstances, reductions on operational measures might not affect the provision of services “because public servants exert extra effort to maintain services despite the challenges involved” (Kiefer et al., 2014, p. 1298). Still, the effects have only been studied in the short-term, and it may be not true in the long run due to different effects as the burnout on the public employees (Berne & Stiefel, 1993) or the negative effects on working relationships and organizational environment (Weil, 2003). Furthermore, when an organization applies cutbacks that affect the job conditions and the resources necessaries to execute policies, those changes have an impact on the quantity and quality of the services provided (Burns et al., 2016).
Cuttings on program measures have instead a more straightforward connection to understanding the effect of cutbacks in the provision of services. As Wright, Christensen and Isett stressed, “all changes in the public sector are not driven by an improvement in services” (Wright et al., p. 739). Public organizations can also introduce cutback changes affecting the quantity or quality of public services. The instruments comprehended here are aimed to decrease the number of beneficiaries of public services or to decrease the quality (and
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consequently, the cost) of the services provided (Kogan, 1981). Some of the possible strategies are the manipulation of the goals of the organization, the simplification or reduction on the variety of services, the reduction on the frequency of the services, the raise of new barriers to access (as paperwork or conditions to be a beneficiary), and the transference of part of the costs to the citizenry or other organizations (Lewis & Logalbo, 1980; Raudla et al., 2013).
The third group of instruments are aimed to reduce the expenditures related with the physical assets of the organization. Some of the instruments are the capital spending freeze for new projects, deferral of capital projects, deferral of maintenance, or the sale of stated owned assets (Gonzalez Molina, 2012; Raudla et al., 2013). The effects of this strategy increase on the long term. Since capital spending are usually done as investment or to facilitate development (Jacobs, 2008), organizations do not only decrease their expenditures, but also forfeit potential benefits. Furthermore, since capital assets are harder to re-establish in the future, any change on them produce more long-lasting effects (Scorsone & Plerhoples, 2010).
As it was shown above, when organizations adopt reforms that reduce the expenditures, they pick different strategies. Through those instruments organizations cope with resource constraints. Some distinction can be made between them and the effects they have in the provision of public services. For example, an organization can decide to sell part of their unused assets, or to reduce the costs related to marketing and communication. Those decisions could not bring a direct effect on the quality and quantity of public services provided by the organization. A different situation is if the decisions are the elimination of extra-hours or the reduction of services provided by the organization. In the second case, the effects are immediate. Nevertheless, in both ways, directly or indirectly, organizational cutbacks affect the capacity of the organization to perform their tasks.
2.2 Resistance to organizational cutbacks
The response and willingness of employees to adapt to organizational change defers according to the type and scope of the change introduced (Darling, 1993). As Dent and Goldberg (1999, p. 26) remarked, “people do not resist change, per se”. A possible reason to
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understand resistance may be found in the effects that organizational cutbacks have in the psychological contract between the employees and their organizations.
As explained by Rousseau (1989), employees understand their relationship with the organization as something that goes beyond a mere transaction of their working force in exchange of a pecuniary compensation. If employees are devoting to the organization’s goals, they develop the idea that there is also a reciprocal obligation for the organization. Consequently, psychological contracts exist because of the commitment of the employees toward the organization. Commitment is based on the acceptance by part of the employees of the organizational values, the willingness to remain being part of the organization, and the existence of efforts in favour of the organization (Mowday & Steers, 1979).
If the expectations of the employee are not matched, the result is a psychological contract breach (Robinson & Rousseau, 1994). Breach is the “cognitive evaluation that one’s organization has failed to fulfil its obligations” (Zhao, Wayne, Glibkowski, & Bravo, 2007, p. 649). The feeling of violation often results in a variety of negative job attitudes and behaviours (Wang & Hsieh, 2014), that often imply a reciprocation on different possible ways (Coyle-Shapiro & Kessler, 2003).
Some researchers found that workers may resist budget reductions because it affects their job security (e.g. Kraimer et al., 2005), conditions (e.g. Wright et al., 2013), job-satisfaction or job well-being (e.g. Kiefer et al., 2 014). The deterioration on the working conditions is one of the ways in which organizations fail to the employees, and, therefore, one of the causes to resist downsizing.
Furthermore, in the case of public organizations, budget reductions also affect the provision of services. By reducing the employees’ job impact and scope, organizations are affecting the whole public service ethic and the public employee’s psychological contract (Feldheim, 2007). Then, the motivation for resistance to organizational cutbacks could be the desire of the workers to attain to their ethical principles (Milgram, 1965). A similar perspective is provided by Foster (2010), who found connections between employee’s dispositional resistances to change and the perception of organizational justice. Hence, resistance may be driven for more unselfish reasons (Graham, 1986). This could explain why Young (2000) found employees’ perception of their resistance as a contribution to the organization’s goal, and not as a try to undermine it.
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Some studies have found that under certain circumstances budget restrictions can push organizations to develop innovative solutions (e.g. Baker & Nelson, 2005; Boyne, 2006; Van de Ven, 1993). Nevertheless, generally –and especially in the long-term-, the more common outcome of cutback is demoralization (Behn, 1980; 1985; Carlson, Kacmar, & Wadsworth, 2002; Motenko et al., 1995).
Literature on reactions to organizational change has been steadily active since the 1950s (Oreg et al., 2011) and it is one of the major topics of management literature. The attention to the topic is not casual. Organizations are constantly embarking in processes of change, and resistance is one of the most common problems reported by managers when they try to implement change (Waldersee & Griffiths, 1997). Consequently, managers have the necessity to understand the effects -both positive and negative- they produce and face when embracing change.
Furthermore, attitudes toward change are critical to achieve successful organizational change (Miller, Johnson, & Grau, 1994). The theory behind those claims lays in the central role of individuals in organizations (Fernandes, Jóia, & Andrade, 2012). Because organizations act throughout their members, they are also a key factor during any process of organizational change (Robertson, 1989; Wright et al., 2013). Underestimating the role and importance of employees during change can lead to the failure of the change (Choi, 2011). 2.2.1 Types of reactions to organizational change
Changes do not go unnoticed. They generate a reactive process by part of the members of the organization (Kyle, 1993). Nevertheless, since changes are perceived differently by each member, the willingness to cooperate or to resist changes also divers alongside the organization (Bovey & Hede, 2001). A proposed classification developed by Piderit (2000) divides the possible reactions to change in three groups: affective, cognitive and behavioural reactions.
The first group are the affective reactions. It refers to the employees’ feeling toward the organizational change. They are divided in negative and positive reactions. Some of the negative affective reactions studied are stress, anxiety, fatigue and negative emotions (Kiefer, 2005; Martin, Jones, & Callan, 2005; Miller et al., 1994; Pierce & Durnham, 1992). Some of the positive affective reactions studied are pleasantness, satisfaction and commitment to
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change (Jones, Jimmieson, & Griffiths, 2005; Mossholder, Settoon, Armenakis, & Harris, 2000; Walker, Armenakis, & Bernerth, 2007).
The second group of cognitive reactions focus on the perceptions of the employees about the change’s value (as usefulness or necessity) both for the organization and for themselves (Oreg et al., 2011). Some examples of cognitive reactions are support for the business strategy, decision satisfaction and perceived fairness (Daly & Geyer, 1994; Gaertner, 1989; Parsons, Liden, O'Connor, & Nagao, 1991), or decision disapproval (Roulet, 2015).
The last group is composed by explicit behavioural reactions. It refers to actions taken or planned to be taken in the future. It is also divided between positive and negative reactions. Among the positive reactions, some are support of change, acceptance and involvement (Cunningham, et al., 2002; Madsen, Miller, & John, 2005; Miller et al., 1994). Finally, the most relevant negative behavioural reaction is resistance to change.
Resistance to change has been defined as “an attempt to push back against a change or tendency” (Deneen & Boud, 2014, p. 580). Cutbacks always affect interests and priorities that are redefined during the cutback process (Levine & Posner, 1981) and increase the uncertainty about the future (Battaglio & Condrey, 2009). Because of that, cutbacks may induce public servants to perceive that the psychological contract has been broken. Due to this, some researchers argue that resistance is not only natural, but also unavoidable in any type of change (Baker S. L., 1989; Fine, 1986) Furthermore, if the cutbacks are bigger, the perceived psychological contract breach would be bigger, as well as the anticipated resistance.
Bovey and Hede (2001) proposed a framework to classify negative behavioural intentions (i.e. resistance). They proposed a matrix composed by four different possible reactions, depending on the combination of two variables: openness or concealment of the behaviour, and active or passive attitude (if the action is proactive or reactive). First, if the resistance is openly expressed and it is actively originated by the employee, then the possible explicit actions will be to obstruct, oppose or protest the change. Second, if the resistance is still openly expressed, but the employee is acting passively or reactively, the explicit actions expected will be the refrain or delay of the change. Third, in the cases where resistance is covert and the employee is actively resisting, the actions expected will be the dismantlement or undermining of the changes. Finally, in the cases where resistance is still covert but the employees are acting passively, the employees could either ignore or avoid the changes.
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H1: Resistance to change will be higher in employees that had previously experienced
organizational cutbacks.
2.3 Moderators to resistance to change
The second part of the research focuses on the antecedents of resistance to change. “Antecedents are those factors which influence employee's evaluation of whether the change should be supported, viewed with indifference or opposed” (Miller et al., 1994, p. 61). Therefore, they are predictors of the attitudes toward change of the employees. Oreg et al. (2011) classified the pre-change antecedents in two groups: change recipient characteristics and the internal context of the organization.
Change recipient characteristics refers to the characteristics of the employees such as self-efficacy, self-esteem, needs, age, gender, tenure and education (e.g. Armenakis, Bernerth, Pitts, & Walker, 2007; Ashford, 1988; Hornung & Rousseau, 2007; Kiefer, 2005; Madsen et al., 2005; Martin et al., 2005; Miller et al., 1994). The different characteristics of the employees produce different predisposition to respond to change. The focus of this research will be posed in the public service motivation of employees, since it is expected to modify the reception of organizational change and it is a unique component of public organizations (Wright et al., 2013).
The internal context focuses in elements of the internal organizational environment such as the trust in management, trust in colleagues and organizational culture (e.g. Cartwright & Cooper, 1993; Coyle-Shapiro & Morrow, 2003; Stanley, Meyer, & Topolnytsky, 2005). Other authors focus on job characteristics, such as how demanding the job is, task significance and job autonomy (e.g. Bhagat & Chassie, 1980; Cunningham et al., 2002; Hornung & Rousseau, 2007). In this research, one type of job characteristic will be studied: the contact with the public.
2.3.1 Public Service Motivation
Public service motivation (PSM) is defined by Vandenabeele as the “belief, values and attitudes that are beyond self-interest and organizational interest, that concern the interest of a
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larger political entity and that motivate individuals to act accordingly whenever appropriate” (Vandenabeele, 2007, p. 547). Employees with higher levels of PSM are more inclined to serve the interest and needs of the community (Rainey & Steinbauer, 1999), due to motives that are linked almost exclusively to public institutions (Perry, 1996). As a consequence, the public sector is more likely to attract workers with higher level of PSM, since it provides the opportunities to fulfil it (Pandey, 2010). According to Desmarais and Gamassou (2014), Vandenabeele’s definition embraces both a more static dimension linked to the nature of PSM and a more dynamic dimension related to the possibility of being a driver of action.
After the first proposed conceptualization (Perry & Wise, 1990) and measurement instrument (Perry, 1996), a lot of debate has taken place about the dimensions on PSM. Although the original 24-items scale has suffered a lot of changes and reductions, the original four dimensions are still sustained (Vandenabeele, 2008). PSM is intended to be composed by an attraction to public policy making, public interest and civic duty, compassion, and self-sacrifice (Perry, 1997).
After the seminar work of Perry and Wise (1990), the attention of PSM as one of the main topics of public administration has constantly increased (Ritz et al., 2016). The study of PSM can be divided in three areas (Vandenabeele, Brewer, & Ritz, 2014): a first one related to the nature and measurement of PSM, a second one related to the antecedents, and the last one related to the outcomes. Following this classification, this research is directed to the outcomes of PSM.
An exhaustive classification of the possible approaches to the study of the outcomes of PSM can divide the subfield into five groups: direct effects of PSM, the effect of PSM moderated by other variables, the effects of PSM mediated by other variables, the mediating role of PSM and the moderator role of PSM. Related to organizational change, the following studies have been found.
On the direct effects of PSM, there are a larger number of studies linked to organizational change. On the positive effects, higher levels of PSM have been linked to organizational commitment (e.g. Andersen & Serritzlew, 2012; Koumenta, 2015) and whistle blowing (e.g. Brewer & Selden, 1998; Caillier, 2016). On the specific topic of cutbacks, Kiefer et al. (2014) suggested that PSM could be a reason of extra efforts by public employees during organizational cutbacks.
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An increasing attention has been given to the direct negative effects of PSM (Steen & Rutgers, 2011). As Paarlberg, James and Hondeghem pointed (2008), once individuals are employed by an organization, the reasons that made them join the public sector may encourage them to act following their original motivations. Motivation to the civil service has also been linked to conflict with the organization (e.g. Romsek & Hendricks, 1982), unethical behaviour (e.g. Maesschalck, van de Wal, & Huberts, 2008), and burn-out (e.g. van Loon, Vandenabeele, & Leisink, 2015). On the specific topic of cutbacks, Wright et al. (2013) found a reduction in the resistance to austerity-driven changes in employees with higher level of PSM.
In the studies of the effects of PSM moderated by other variables, support for organizational change has also been linked to PSM when the change is perceived as an improvement on the public service (Cerase & Farinella, 2009; Moynihan & Pandey, 2007; Naff & Crum, 1999; Paarlberg & Lavigna, 2010).
In the group composed by the mediating role of PSM, only one study is related to organizational change. Ritz and Fernandez (2011) studied the PSM mediating between change culture and resistance to change.
No studies were found linking PSM with organizational change studying the mediating effect of other variables, or studying the moderator effects of PSM.
In this research, PSM motivation is studied as a moderator effect between organizational cutbacks and resistance to change. Few studies exist linking PSM with positive attitudes toward general change in the public sector (Cerase & Farinella, 2009; Naff & Crum, 1999; Ritz & Fernandez, 2011). Yet, even fewer exist on the specific cases where the content of change is organizational downsizing, despite the importance and frequency of those types of changes in the public sector. The results of Wright et al. (2013) conclude that public servants who are less worried about the personal effects of the changes (i.e. with higher levels of self-sacrifice) are less likely to resist change and they have a modelling role to the attitudes of other employees. Similarly, van der Voet, Steijn and Kuipers (2016) found that public servants with higher prosocial motivation express higher commitment to change, even when the change is not perceived as meaningful for their clients.
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The expectation of this research is that the global measure of PSM will moderate positively the resistance to organizational cutbacks (2a), while the specific component of self-sacrifice will instead moderate it negatively (2b). Two examples may help to illustrate better hypothesis 2a.
First, the perceived duty of the government is now more related than before to promote equality through positive discrimination toward historically excluded groups. To do so, governments have been increasing its central role in the provision of jobs to excluded minorities (Groeneveld & Verbeek, 2012). Therefore, downsizing in the public sector could affect those minorities and increase undesired inequalities. Second, some constitutions establish well-specified responsibilities for their governments. In the case of the Netherlands, for example, the Article 22 of the Constitution states the obligation of the government to promote the health of its population. The introduction of organizational cutbacks is likely to affect the provision of those services, undermining the possibility of the government to fulfil its obligations.
Then, and contrarily to the general findings, PSM could be a positive moderator between organizational change and resistance to change when the introduced changes affect negatively the provision of public services. A main reason is that the provision of public service is vital to the identity of public servants (Perry, 1996). Cutbacks affect the provision of services that are part of the sense-making of public employment (Kiefer, 2005; Levine, 1978) and conflict with different perceptions on the duties of the government (Levine, 1979).
Returning to the psychological contract theory, these effects of organizational cutbacks in the provision of services may produce a psychological contract breach. According to Castaing (2006), the psychological contract of public servants is composed both by the general expectations -administrative expectations- that employees develop to all type of employers, and by a unique component: public service expectations. This dimension is distinctive of public organizations, and refers to the expectations of the public employee that their employer has obligations not only related to them, but also related to the whole community. Public service expectations are higher in employees with higher levels of PSM, who join the public sector expecting to accomplish their motivations. As explained by van der Voet et al. (2016) downsizing decreases the possibilities of employees to satisfy the motivation that drove them to join the public sector in the first place. When that happens, the negative behaviours described by the psychological contact breach literature are likely to appear.
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H2a: The higher the degree of Public Service Motivation, the more positively
organizational cutbacks will be related to resistance to change.
On regards on hypothesis 2b, it is important to stress that literature on PSM has increasingly pointed that not all its components have the same effects, in particular, self-sacrifice (Kim & Vandenabeele, 2010). Self-self-sacrifice refers to conducts of unselfish behaviours instead of looking for personal benefits (Perry, 1996). While Vandenabeele and Penning de Vries (2016) argues that self-sacrifice is the foundation of the other motives of PSM, several studies have found that self-sacrifice provide different outcomes than the other components, and started measuring it isolated from the global PSM measurement (e.g. Battaglio & French, 2016; Kim J., 2015; Taylor, 2007). As showed before, Wright et al. (2013) findings show that self-sacrifice is the only accountant of the increasing of commit to austerity-driven changes. Per the authors, this support is a consequence of employees being less worried about the personal effects of those changes.
Psychological contract literature has showed the existence of differences on the psychological contract and in the psychological contract breach perceptions accordingly to the personality of the employees (Raja, Johns, & Ntalianis, 2004). Personality is a central determinant on employees’ belief on the obligations of the organization, and on when that obligations are not being honoured (Orvis, Dudley, & Cortina, 2008). When connecting PSM theory with psychology contract theory through the Big Five Personality model (Goldberg, 1992), we can find a further explanation of the expected differences between self-sacrifice and the global measurement of PSM. Jang (2012) found a higher correlation between self-sacrifice and openness to experience, therefore with higher levels of creativity, innovation, perceptivity, understanding and optimism (Barrick & Mount, 1993; Costa & McRae, 1995). Accordingly, openness is negatively correlated with the perception of psychological contract breach (Jafri, 2014). Instead of finding negative responses to organizational cutbacks, employees with higher levels of self-sacrifice may support the change.
H2b: The higher the degree of self-sacrifice, the less positively organizational cutbacks
21 2.3.2 Contact with the public
Job characteristics theory is built upon the premise that certain job characteristics might foster the motivation of the employees (Oldham & Hackman, 2010). The most accepted job characteristics model (Hackman & Oldham, 1975) distinguish five core job characteristics (task significance, task identity, skill variety, autonomy, and job feedback) and assess that those dimensions have an impact on attitudes, behaviours, job satisfaction, motivation and performance of the workers (Hackman & Lawler, 1971; see also Grant, 2008b; Humphrey, Nahrgang, & Morgeson, 2007).
Task significance is “the degree to which the job has a substantial impact on the lives or work of other people” (Hackman & Oldham, 1976, p. 257). If the employees experience that their jobs affect positively other people’s well-being, they are more likely to be more motivated (van der Voet & Steijn, 2016), and to perform better on their jobs (Bellé, 2014) as they perceive their jobs as meaningful.
Since job characteristics depend on how a certain job is structured and executed (Grant et al., 2011), job design is fundamental to enable task significance. As it happens frequently in the public sector, the contact with the beneficiaries is not always facilitated by the job or the beneficiaries are difficult to be distinguished (Anderson & Stritch, 2016). Certain properties of the job provide employees with more opportunities to get to know and engage with the beneficiaries of their tasks (Grant, 2007).
Grant (2008) proposed to distinguish jobs accordingly to the opportunities they provide for impact on the beneficiaries and the opportunities for contact with the beneficiaries. On the second characteristic, jobs vary on three dimensions: frequency, breadth and depth. Frequency is the quantity of time the employee spent in contact with the public. Breadth refers to the possibility of interacting with different types of beneficiaries. Depth is related to the opportunities to produce significant interactions.
Public servants may vary on these dimensions, even if they work on the same policy area. For example, a receptionist on a public office would have higher level of frequency of contact with the public than an accountant working on the Ministry headquarters, and lesser than a nurse who is constantly engaging in interactions with the beneficiaries of its actions. Still, the type of level of contact could also differ from the receptionist and a hospital director, who
22
may be engaged in a smaller number of interactions but could produce deeper and more emotional relations.
Hence, employees that have jobs with more frequent contact with the public, that have contact with a broader type of beneficiaries and that engage in more significant interactions, are more likely to have a stronger perception of their task significance (Grant, 2007), and consequently, are more motivated, which could enhance their performance. Furthermore, the perceived importance of the task has been found to enhance organizational goal commitment (Locke & Latham, 2002). Yet, it remains unexplored how all these dimensions are affected on times of organizational change, especially when those changes are not driven to the improvement of the services.
Public servants that have a meaningful contact with the public are subjected to different working stimulus. As Desmarais and Gamassou (2014) pointed, their understanding of ‘service to the public’ acquires a concrete dimension rather than being an abstract concept. That produces that employees have more chances to empathize with the public and, consequently, to defend the public’s interest over the organizational interest (Parker & Axtell, 2001), especially when it is linked to the beneficiaries’ welfare (Grant, 2008). Sometimes if the perception of these workers is that their jobs and organizations are not fulfilling their expectations, it could lead to complains and accusations towards the organization (Vinzant, 1998), or to actively engage in practices that defy organizational mandates (Dodson, 2009; James & Killick, 2010; Lipsky, 1980).
Therefore, the perceived impacts of organizational cutbacks may be appreciated differently according to the type of job. If those changes are reducing the impact of their job, employees may respond by resisting those changes to protect the personal and organizational task significance.
Some work characteristics associated to higher level of contact with the public may also explain why it could be related to higher level of resistance to organizational cutbacks. As stated by Orfield (1991), these types of jobs provide the employee with a direct contact with the problems of the public, while at the same time they often lack participation in the policy-decision process. Furthermore, employees could be already working in difficult conditions and without the necessary resources, and consequently, they could be more constantly facing moral dilemmas. If the conditions deteriorate, that could force them to leave or to challenge
23
the organization. In fact, Grant and Campbell (2007) found a negative effect on job satisfaction and burnout in the cases where employees perceived that their actions were detrimental to the service recipients.
Accordingly, Jones (1991) found that one of factors of ethical decisions-making is the closeness between the decision-maker and the recipient of the actions. The judgment over the ethicality of the actions is affected by how close those two actors are (Carlson et al., 2002). As cutbacks affect trust, morale and commitment of the whole organization (Feldheim, 2007), a stronger reaction is expected by those employees who have higher levels of contact with the public, as they are more exposed to the public’s problems (Desmarais & Gamassou, 2014). Ashford (1988) found that during the implementation of organizational cutbacks, employees that were closer to the public were more worried about their duty toward the clients rather than the effects on their jobs.
H3: The higher level of opportunities the job provides to have contact with the public, the
more positively organizational cutbacks will be related to resistance to change.
Organizational
Cutbacks Resistance
PSM Self-sacrifice
Figure 1. Theoretical Model
Contact with the public
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3
Method
3.1 Case Selection
The Dutch public sector includes more than one million workers, which constitutes 13% of the total working force (Statistics Netherlands, 2016). The Netherlands is a unified state with high levels of decentralization, composed by the central government, 12 provinces and 393 municipalities, and an independent judiciary system. Water boards are also part of the central administration, though they have their own elected councils. Traditionally, when the administration is divided into sectors, education, the health sectors and the police are depicted as external to the central administration (Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, 2016a).
As an attempt to control the impacts of the 2008 economic crisis, the government decided to implement a long term downsizing change alongside the public sector. The ongoing austerity programme comprises 43% of tax increasing and 57% of spending cuts, aiming to save €48bn overall (Centraal Planbureau, 2013). This cutback reform is the selected case for this research.
Different studies have shown that Dutch public servants are highly driven by motivations linked to the public service (e.g. Leisink & Steijn, 2009; Steijn, 2006; Steijn & Leisink, 2006; Vandenabeele & van de Walle, 2008), regardless other existing incentives. Literature agrees that some resistance is expected to occur when organizations introduced cutback related changes (Oreg et al., 2011). In this research, public service motivation, self-sacrifice and contact with the public are expected to moderate the resistance to organizational change
3.2 Data
The Direction of Public Sector Labour Affairs (APS), of the Dutch Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK) created in 2006 a web panel (Flitspanel), where Dutch public servants enrolled themselves to participate and response to surveys. More than 20.000 public
25
employees are registered, belonging to public organizations of different sectors and different levels. Being 957.000 the total number of public servants in the Netherlands (Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, 2016a), it represents 2,1% of the Dutch public employees.
The data was collected as part of a larger research. The instrument was an online questionnaire composed by 132 closed questions. Of them, 33 have been used for this research. The objective of the survey was to measure the level of organizational cutbacks, the likelihood to have negative reactions to change by part of the employees, the job characteristics related to the opportunities their jobs provide to have contact with the public and the public service motivation of the employees.
The survey was uploaded on August 1st 2016 and was available online one month till August 31st 2016. The response rate was of 28,58% (n=5.716). The questionnaire was applied in Dutch.
Of the 5.716 cases, 18,2% (1.042) answered they hold a leading position by contract. The employees with leading positions have a different relation with the downsizing since they are more likely to participate in the decision process. Therefore, they were excluded from the analyses. Also, when asked about the category of their job, 3.473 (60,8%) answered that their jobs were directly related to the objective of their organization, while 2.243 (39,2%) answered they were indirectly related or did not fit into those categories. Only those directly involved were included. Four cases were excluded due to missing data.
The resulting dataset was composed by 2.847 cases. Of them, 1.308 worked in the Central Administration, 1.093 in the Education sector, 306 in the Police and 140 in the Health sector. Since the second part of the analysis is focused on the differences between the Central Administration and the Education sector, the cases of employees working in the Police or the Health sector were also excluded from the general dataset. The final number of analysed cases is 2.401 (42% of the original dataset).
As showed in Table I, the sample is composed by 55,3% male and 44,7% women and the average age is 52,1 years. Therefore there is some overrepresentation of men (45,5% in the overall Dutch public sector population) and of the employees older than 55 years (50,9%)
26 Table I
Frequency, range, mean and standard deviation of the control variables
Variable n Min Max Mean SD Categories Freq. %
Organization size (number of
employees) 2.346 0-25 147 6,3 26-50 179 7,6 51-100 211 9,0 101-500 905 38,6 501-1000 294 12,5 1001-5000 388 16,5 Over 5001 222 9,5 Sector 2.401 Administration 1.308 54,5 Education 1.093 45,5 Gender 2.401 Men 1.327 55,3 Women 1.074 44,7 Education 2.401 1 6 5,15 0,839 Primary 1 0,1 Vocational Secondary 48 2,0 Higher Secondary 67 2,8 Tertiary 196 8,2 Professional 1.260 52,5 Academic 829 34,5 Age 2.401 23 70 52,12 9,405
Tenure at current job 2.401 0 49 17,61 11,45
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compared with the overall public sector data (27,0%) (Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, 2016b). The maximum level of education achieved is distributed as following: primary education (0,1%), vocational secondary education (2,0%), higher secondary education (2,8%), tertiary education (8,2%), professional education (525%) and academic education (34,5%). The average tenure at their current organization is 17,6 years.
The distribution of workers according to the organizational size of the organization is as following: 0-25 employees (6,3%), 26-50 employees (7,6%), 51-100 employees (9,0%), 101-500 employees (38,6%), 501-1.000 employees (12,5%), 1.001-5.000 employees (16,5%), and more than 5.000 employees (9,5%). Related to the two studied sectors, the core administration -which includes the national administration, provincial administration, municipal administration, judicial branch and waterboards- is composed by 1.308 cases (54,5%). The education sector (primary and secondary) is composed by 1.093 cases (45,5%). The composition is similar to the Dutch public sector. Furthermore, the overall composition is similar to previous studies that used Flitspanel (van der Voet & Vermeeren, 2017).
4.3 Measures
All the key variables of the research were measured through a five-point Likert scale, ranging from ‘1 - Completely Disagree’ to ‘5 – Completely agree’.
Dependent variable
Resistance to change
Resistance to change are the actions done by public employees to oppose or express rejection to an organizational change. Oreg (2006) developed a 15 items measure for ‘Change Attitude’ that includes affective, behavioural and cognitive attitudes. Since this research studies explicit resistance, only the five items correspondents to behavioural attitude were used. The five questions items are: ‘I looked for ways to prevent the change from taking place’; ‘I protested against the change’; ‘I complained about the change to my colleagues’; ‘I presented my objections regarding the change to management’; and, ‘I spoke positively about the change to others’ (reversed). Cronbach’s alpha for this scale is 0,695.
28 Independent variable
Organizational cutbacks
Due to the large number of organizations reached by the study, a proxy variable was developed to analyse the type and extent of the organizational cutbacks. Instead of measuring objective organizational cutbacks, respondents had to answer to what extend the following changes were present in their organizations the past year: hiring freezing, reduction of the budget, mergers of teams within the organization, mergers with another organization, layoffs of personnel, wage freezing, and reduction of number of tasks of the organization. Cronbach’s alpha for this scale is 0,714.
Moderator variables
Public Service Motivation
The measurement for public service motivation has been largely debated due to the difficult of grasping the multiplicity of concepts included on it (Perry, Hendeghem, & Wise, 2010) and the complexity of creating an international instrument (Kim et al., 2013), and have suffered a large number of changes since the original 24-item scale developed by Perry (1996). The instrument used here is the global measure developed by Vandenabeele and Penning de Vries (2016). Global measures allow to synthetize the concept and avoid making surveys unnecessarily longer.
The measure is composed by four items: ‘I am very motivated to contribute to society’, ‘I find it very motivating to contribute to society’, ‘Making a difference in society, no matter how small, is very important to me’, and ‘Defending the public interest is very important to me’. Cronbach’s alpha for this scale is 0,786.
Self-sacrifice
Self-sacrifice measure refers to the willingness of the employee to prioritize societal over personal outcomes and the willingness to do extra efforts to produce benefits for their
29
communities or society. The measure used is based on Kim et al. (2013) and is composed by four items: ‘‘A lot of what I do is good for others’ ‘I am willing to sacrifice a lot for the community’, ‘People should give more to society than what they take back’, and ‘Contributing to a better society is more important than personal results’.
Though Cronbach’s alpha for this scale is 0,643, the measure was kept since in previous studies it showed better reliability. For example, in Kim et al. (2013) study, the reliability scale was α=0,782. The difference may be due to the reduction of items from seven to four.
Contact with the public
Contact with the public refers to the possibilities a certain job provides to have frequent and deep interaction between public servants and the public. The measure is based on Grant (2008). The six components items are: ‘My job allows frequent communication with the people who benefit from my work’; ‘My job often gives me the opportunity to meet the people who benefit from my work’; ‘My job enables me to build close relationships with the people affected by my work’; ‘My job allows me to form emotional connections with the people who benefit from my work’; ‘My job enables me to interact regularly with the people who benefit from my work’; and, ‘My job gives me the chance to have meaningful communications with the people who benefit from my work’. Cronbach’s alpha for this scale is 0,897.
Control variables
Seven control variables were used in the research. Employees had to assess first if the hold a formal leadership position according to their contract. Then, they had to identify the sector they work in: national government, provincial administration, municipal administration, judiciary, waterboards, primary education, secondary education, university medical centres and police. They were also asked the size of their organization on seven categories: ‘1: 0-25 employees’, ‘2: 26-50 employees’, ‘3: 51-100 employees’, ‘4: 101-500 employees’, ‘5: 501-1.000 employees’, ‘6: 1.001-5.000 employees’, and ‘7: More than 5.000 employees’.
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They had to report their gender, age and organizational tenure. Finally, education level was measured with values ‘1: Primary education’, ‘2: Secondary education’, ‘3: Lower professional education’, ‘4: Higher professional education’, and ‘5: Academic education’.
3.4 Strengths and Limitations
As a large-n quantitative study, its major strength is its external validity. This strength is increased by the use of Flitspanel to implement the survey. As showed before, Flitspanel has a high population validity, as the sample has a high resemblance with the Dutch public sector and reaches almost all the areas that compose it. This allows the possibility of generalization to the overall of Dutch public servants.
Furthermore, most of the measures used on the study have been largely studied and tested before. By following standardized measures, the study permits to be replicated in the future and be tested in different contexts. Also, the use of recognized measurements decreases the possibility to concur in construct and content invalidities.
Nevertheless, when the measures are explored on depth, other strengths and limitation are found. As the Flitspanel reaches wide different sectors, it is impossible to define in details the possible cutbacks applied in each organization. Because of that, the measurement had to be general and cutbacks had to be measured through a proxy of self-reported perception of cutbacks rather than an objective measure.
The limitations to the measure of resistance to change are a consequence of the aforementioned limitations of the cutbacks measurement. The impossibility to identify specific cutbacks made necessary to measure resistance to change as a generic behaviour to organizational change rather than a specific action.
Of the moderator variables, only the self-sacrifice show some limitations, as its Cronbach’s alpha is 0,643. This is probably due to the reduction of items, and can be fixed in future research by using more items.
Finally, the research would have gained in explanation power by including a qualitative approach. As the theory assumption is that psychological contract breach and task significance are central in the process of resistance, doing interviews to public servants might
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have provided a clearer and more complete understanding of the process while testing those theoretical assumptions.
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4
Results
This chapter is composed by three sections, portraying the descriptive statistics, correlations analyses and regression analyses, respectively. To gain capacity of analysis, the dataset was also analysed divided in two groups: one composed only by employees working on the administration sector, and the other one composed by employees working on the education sector.
4.1 Descriptive Statistics
As presented in Table II, most Dutch public servants experienced some sort of cutbacks in the last year (range:1-4,86; mean=2,38; SD=0,719). Not all possible cutbacks strategies were applied equally. Vacancy stops (mean=3,02), budget reductions (2,98) and mergers within the organization (2,84) were the most applied instruments. On the other hand, the reduction of tasks was the least strategy used (1,61). Public organizations tried to avoid reducing their tasks and tried first to adapt their resources and processes to achieve the same results with less resources.
Most Dutch public servants also engaged in practices of resistance to organizational change (range: 1-5; mean=2,73; SD=0,569). Significantly higher is the frequency of workers who shared their concerns with their managers (mean=3,60), even higher than with their colleagues (2,73). This reflects a system of participation and communication where the communication channel between managers and employees was open and frequent.
The results on PSM (4,05) and Self-Sacrifice (3,54) are similar to previous findings in the Netherlands. Dutch public sector is characterized by a high level of PSM and, although high, self-sacrifice presents lower results, as it is not completely part of the Dutch mental frame of the public service.
Finally, the Dutch public sector provides a lot of opportunities to interact with the beneficiaries (3,70). Interesting is the difference between the concept of engaging in meaningful communication (4,20) and establish an emotional connection (3,24), which reflects that not always a meaningful communication is matched with emotional connections.
33 Table II
Range, mean, standard deviation of the main variables (n=2.401)
Variable Categories Min Max Mean SD
Resistance to change 1 5 2,73 0,569
Try to prevent changes 2,07 0,839
Protest 2,49 0,871
Share concern with colleagues 2,73 0,958
Share concerns with management 3,60 0,825
Speak positively (inversed) 2,76 0,733
Organizational cutbacks 1 4,86 2,38 0,719
Vacancy stops 3,02 1,307
Budget reductions 2,98 1,093
Mergers within organization 2,84 1,321
Mergers with other organization 1,97 1,267
Staff reduction 1,87 1,023
Wage freezes 2,35 1,295
Reduction of tasks 1,61 0,914
PSM 1,25 5 4,05 0,488
I am motivated to contribute to society 4,02 0,635
Making a difference is important 3,18 0,789
I find motivating be able to contribute 3,41 0,767
Defending the public interest is important 3,54 0,797
Self-sacrifice 1,25 5 3,54 0,520
A lot of what I do is good for others 4,02 0,635
Willing to sacrifice a lot for the community 3,18 0,789 People should give more to society than what they
take back 3,41 0,767
Contributing to a better society is more important
than personal results 3,54 0,797
Contact with the public (job provide opportunities to…)1 1 5 3,70 0,712
Talk a lot with the public 3,80 0,841
Meet a large number of beneficiaries 3,80 0,822
Establish a close relationship with the public 3,44 0,983 Establish an emotional connection with the public 3,24 1,069
Interact regularly with the public 3,94 0,778
Engage in meaningful communication with the
public1 4,20 0,885
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Later, the dataset was divided in two groups. The first one are the public servants working in the administration. It includes the national administration, provincial administration, municipal administration, judicial branch and waterboards, and is composed by 1.308 cases. The second one are public servants working in the education sector (primary and secondary), and is composed by 1.093 cases. The two sectors are briefly compared at Table III.
Table III
Comparison of frequency and mean of the control variables. Administration (n=1.308) and Education sector (n=1.093)
Administration Education
Variable Categories % Mean % Mean
Organization size (number
of employees) 0-25 0,8 12,8 26-50 0,9 15,7 51-100 2,7 16,4 101-500 30,8 47,9 501-1000 19,8 3,8 1001-5000 27,7 3,3 Over 5001 17,3 0,1 Gender Men 68,6 39,3 Women 31,4 60,7 Education Primary 0,1 Vocational Secondary 3,4 0,3 Higher Secondary 4,4 0,8 Tertiary 13,8 1,5 Professional 38,9 68,7 Academic 39,4 28,7 Age 52,19 52,04 Tenure at current job
18,67
17,51
